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Herbert Wyndham (Earth-616)
God, HE, Lord High Evolutionary | Identity = Secret | Affiliation = Creator of the New Men, Knights of Wundagore, Ani-Mutants, Animen, , New Immortals | Relatives = Unidentified mother and aunt (presumed deceased); Nobilus (creation, "son"); Adam Warlock (foster son); Higher Evolutionary ("son" and creation) | Universe = Earth-616 | BaseOfOperations = Counter-Earth; formerly Wundagore Mountain, Wundagore II, City of the High Evolutionary | CharRef = | Gender = Male | Height = 6'2" | Height2 = (variable) | Weight = 200 lbs | Weight2 = (without armor; variable) | Eyes = Brown | Hair = Brown | Hair2 = (variable) | UnusualFeatures = | Citizenship = British | MaritalStatus = Single | Occupation = Deity, geneticist, inventor, scientist | Education = Incomplete Ph.D at Oxford University | UnusualFeatures = Digital entity; formerly horribly disfigured face that looked like a mass of different animal features. | Origin = A.I.; formerly human mutate | PlaceOfBirth = Manchester, England | Creators = Stan Lee; Jack Kirby | First = Thor Vol 1 134 | Quotation = The High Evolutionary intends to build a god fit for the twenty-first century. And you will be his raw materials. | Speaker = High Evolutionary | QuoteSource = Iron Man/Thor Vol 1 1 | HistoryText = Early Life As a student in the 1920s, Herbert Wyndham was inspired by the work of Nathaniel Essex to perform his own genetic experiments, evolving rats in his parents' basement. Later, when he attended a conference in Geneva, Wyndham was approached by a disguised Inhuman, who gave Wyndham the secrets for unlocking genetic codes. As a result, he created a serum that allowed for genetic alteration, but his controversial work got him expelled from Oxford University. However, Wyndham joined with another fellow scientist, Jonathan Drew to continue his work, and they set up base in Transia on Wundagore Mountain in a futuristic citadel that his Inhuman contact gave him a workforce of Moloids to build. Spider-Woman Drew's daughter Jessica became ill thanks to their proximity to the mountain's reserves of uranium, and she was treated by a combination of spider serum and Wyndham's evolutionary technology and placed in suspended animation. This process would later result in Jessica becoming the superheroine known as Spider-Woman. Drew's wife was killed by a werewolf, Gregor Russoff, while Wyndham survived the attack. Jonathan left Wundagore, and Wyndham constructed a suit of advanced armor to protect himself. New Men Soon after this, aided by a new assistant named Miles Warren, Wyndham created the New Men by evolving animals into humanoid forms. Jonathan returned to Wundagore possessed by the sorcerer Magnus, who warned him that the mountain was the banishing place of the demon Chthon, though the scientifically-minded Wyndham scoffed at this - albeit Magnus convinced Wyndham to teach the New Men a chivalry code as ethics. One of the New Men was the Inheritor, an evolved cockroach who developed megalomania and, unlike his peers, refused to follow Wyndham's orders and chivalry code. Wyndham reacted by banishing him to outer space. Chthon Russoff used the mystical book the Darkhold to try and cure his lycanthropy, freeing Chthon in the process. Wyndham, now known as the High Evolutionary, and the New Men, now known as the Knights of Wundagore, fought the demon and banished him again. Maximoff Twins However, at that moment, a pregnant woman Magda gave birth to twins Wanda and Pietro on the mountain, in the citadel, and Chthon's power touched them, giving him a conduit into the world. The twins would grow up to become the mutant superheroes the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. The High Evolutionary's New Man Bova first tried to pass the twins on to Robert Frank, whose wife had died in childbirth, before giving them to a gypsy couple who had lost their own children. Gaining Powers After clashes with the heroes Thor and the Hulk, the High Evolutionary decided to launch his citadel into space. There, Wyndham temporarily evolved himself into a disembodied intelligence. He later devolved himself back into his normal form, but now had powers, including the ability to evolve or devolve other creatures at will. Counter-Earth After his return to corporeality, the High Evolutionary took a ship disguised as an asteroid to the point in Earth's orbit on the opposite side of the sun and used his technology and abilities to advance a small chunk of terrestrial material into a nearly identical copy of the Earth. His goal was to create an Earth without the corruption of evil, but while he was resting, Man-Beast sneaked onto his ship and tampered with the process to add that corruption himself. At the same time, the High Evolutionary had recovered the cocoon of Him and was taking care of it until its inhabitant would emerge again in a new form. When Him was reborn, High Evolutionary re-christened him as Adam Warlock, gave him the Soul Gem (which he had obtained by unrevealed circumstances), and enlisted him to protect Counter-Earth from Man-Beast and his evil New Men. When Galactus discovered the existence of Counter-Earth, the High Evolutionary created another army of New Men and sent Gorr to acquire the help of the Fantastic Four against the world eater and its herald, the Destroyer. Counter-Earth was soon after stolen by the Prime Movers of Tarkus at the behest of the Beyonders to be put in a cosmic museum. Wyndham pursued those responsible to reclaim his creation, but when he learned of the Beyonders' nature and how unfathomably advanced they were compared to his own conceivable potential, he fell into despair and sought to end his own life. His sealed armor foiled conventional suicide attempts, but by goading the Hulk into a fight, he damaged his armor enough to turn his de-evolution powers on himself, reducing himself to protoplasmic goo. Evolutionary War The High Evolutionary later turned up alive and rededicated to his goal of advancing human evolution to a level to rival the Beyonders. Rather than limit his methods to his own subjects, he took his quest global and aimed to remove obstacles to his design by attacking genetic groups he deemed evolutionary dead ends and aggressively procuring resources towards his master project. To assist in these tasks, he recruited armored agents to carry out simultaneous raids around the world: Gatherers to identify and locate target groups and resources, Purifiers to suppress and neutralize targets, and heavily armed Eliminators for outright destruction of opposing institutions. Despite his increasingly violent methods, the High Evolutionary still considered himself a benevolent god, and believed by sterilizing beings or removing their powers while avoiding killing them, he was being sufficiently merciful. Among the steps the High Evolutionary took in his crusade was discrediting the work of his former associate, cloning specialist Miles Warren. Wyndham still believed cloning was a dead end in genetic research and did everything he could to discredit the idea. After studying the Gwen Stacy clone created by Warren, he lied to Spider-Man and the woman, claiming she was not a clone at all. Wyndham even went so far as to plant false journals of Warren's around Empire state University, claiming he had created a DNA recombinant virus that would re-engineer one person into the physical and genetic duplicate of another, rather than actual clones. The Avengers stopped him, though the High Evolutionary and Hercules were exposed to the High Evolutionary's Genesis Chamber and became "more than a god", evolving out of existence. Black Galaxy Saga The evolved essences of High Evolutionary and Hercules were harvested by the Celestials and imprisoned and manipulated for unknown purposes in the Black Galaxy. Eventually both were returned to human form. After his liberation, the High Evolutionary decided that rather than advancing humanity, he would create new gods and immortals using the unique matter that composed the Black Galaxy, which included the New Immortals and the Analyzer. He and his creations were on-hand to witness the birth of a new Celestial, but viewing this event with all his hyper-evolved senses seemed to drive the High Evolutionary back to madness. He and his adopted son Adam Warlock reunited in conflict with the Man-Beast. Savage Land Mount Wundagore came under attack by Acolytes and Genoshan Mutates led by Exodus, who saw the Evolutionary's artificial work as an affront to natural evolution. Wyndham was forced to flee Wundagore, and left a garrison of Knights under the command of Pietro Maximoff. Fleeing to the Savage Land, Wyndham's experiments with the unstable Isotope E left him an evolutionary unstable addict, shifting from Neanderthal to Hyper-Evolved Human states uncontrollably without regular exposure. His mental instability progressed to the point that the High Evolutionary became infatuated with Shanna, wife of Ka-Zar. Infused with the power of the Savage Land's terraformer (commissioned by the Beyonders), she had become much like the High Evolutionary himself. The two became obsessed with each other, and nearly departed Earth to create a new world of their own, but Ka-Zar convinced Shanna otherwise. The High Evolutionary repented, agreeing to return Shanna to her normal state once he realized that the relationship should not be pursued. He then restored the engines that kept the volcanoes active, saving the Savage Land. Depowering Mutants The High Evolutionary devised the means to negate the x-factor in every mutant on the planet using satellite technology. He was manipulated into this by Mister Sinister, but the depowered X-Men ultimately ended his scheme. Endangered Species The High Evolutionary was one of the scientists Beast consulted with after M-Day. In a separate experiment, he devised the means to restore Magneto's mutant powers after being decimated, using power harvested from the Dreaming Celestial. Annihilation: Conquest While working on restructuring the Kree genome in a fortress inside a star, Adam Warlock brought Quasar and Moondragon to him after being overwhelmed by Phalanx warriors, who quickly invaded the High Evolutionary's vessel. Once Ultron was revealed to be the leader of the Phalanx militia, the High Evolutionary detonated the star, vaporizing his ship, Ultron, and the invading Phalanx warriors. He was then captured by the Phalanx and forced to transfer the essence of Ultron into the body of Adam Warlock, apparently killing him. However, the High Evolutionary was aware that Warlock's consciousness had survived and implied that Warlock would "lead the way" for the new Guardians of the Galaxy. War of the Four Cities The Forever City of the High Evolutionary was one of the sites in the War of the Four Cities. Wyndham worked with the Future Foundation during the early days of the conflict. Zebra Children When the High Evolutionary learned of the Origin Bombs launched at Earth by the Gardeners, he arrived in the Savage Land to study the Zebra Children. New Warriors The High Evolutionary was later convinced by Zuras of the Eternals that the Celestials were going to come to the Earth and judge it, for which Wyndham killed all of the New Men and sent numerous Evolutionaries to assault metahumans. He attempted to use a gene bomb that would've killed anything that wasn't human on the surface of the Earth, but was stopped by the New Warriors. He later tried once again to build the bomb, even though the New Warriors pinned him down. This time, the Eternals arrived to help the High Evolutionary and defeated the Warriors. After gaining a second wind, the Warriors discovered that Zuras had been lying. Zuras blamed the High Evolutionary for his actions and blasted him, leaving him for dead. Counter-Evolutionary The High Evolutionary later returned to a somehow-restored Counter-Earth, and used it as a test tube to create the perfect New Men, periodically performing a cleansing each time he noticed a "flaw," and starting again. The High Evolutionary was assisted by the Master Scientist and his creation Luminous who he created using the genetic templates of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. He didn't know it yet, but some of these New Men "flaws" were given refuge in Lowtown by the Low Evolutionary. The High Evolutionary confronted the Avengers Unity Division when they interfered with his plan to destroy Lowtown, a refuge for a resistance formed by the High Evolutionary's rejects led by the Low Evolutionary. The High Evolutionary was defeated after Doctor Voodoo unleashed upon him the thousands of souls of those he had exterminated. His mask was removed during the conflict revealing his deformed face. The High Evolutionary was forced to flee through a portal with Luminous after being beaten up by Quicksilver. Eternity War Upon returning to Counter-Earth at some point, the High Evolutionary was approached by The Maker, a Reed Richards from an alternate reality who wanted his help with a mission that given to him by the Molecule Man: to evolve the entire Multiverse. The Ultimates later encountered High Evolutionary and Maker watching the Infinity Watch fight the Aspirants created by the First Firmament. The two of them then harvested the energies of the Aspiriants and were able to destroy the Superflow that separated the different universes, thus succeeding in bringing every universe together into a single reality. The damage was subsequently reversed by the combined efforts of the Ultimates and their namesake team from the Maker's universe. Worlds Collide After continuing his work on Counter-Earth, the High Evolutionary targeted the regular Earth. First, Wyndham used his technology to accelerate the Counter-Earth's orbit, causing it to lap the Earth every few minutes. Because the planets differed in vibrational frequency, they simply phased through each other. The High Evolutionary subsequently sent a meteor towards the Earth containing a device that altered the planet's vibrational frequency, slowly syncing the vibrations of the two planets until they would eventually merge. The Avengers and Champions fought to prevent this. Falcon of the Avengers and Viv of the Champions were unexpectedly transported to Counter-Earth where they were captured by the High Evolutionary's Ani-Men and brought before him. The Evolutionary decided to evolve the two heroes. In Viv's case, he transformed her into a human. The Champions eventually learned from one of the New Men that the Evolutionary intended to crash Counter-Earth into Earth, destroying both worlds in the process, in an insane attempt to further evolution by starting things over from scratch. The Avengers and Champions traveled to Counter-Earth to the Evolutionary's plan and rescued Falcon and Viv. As the Evolutionary planned to escape using a teleporter, the Avengers and Champions confronted him. As he fled, the heroes struck him with energy attacks, causing him to fall into his teleporter as it malfunctioned, seemingly causing him to perish. It was also revealed that the High Evolutionary had a compassionate clone called the Higher Evolutionary whose personality caused the High Evolutionary to hook up to the Orbit-Engine in which his removal would destroy Counter-Earth. However, the Evolutionary survived but was transformed completely into sentient digital data and was trapped in an unknown dimension. While evolving the life on the planet he landed on, he unexpected encountered Viv who was also sent to the unknown dimension after deactivating the machine that would have caused Earth and Counter-Earth to collide. The High Evolutionary explained his situation and revealed that he couldn't return to their world because his digital existence required a connection. The High Evolutionary then revealed that he could use Viv as a means to return to their world because Vision was creating a new Viv to replace her and believed that the second Viv could be that connection that could take both of them back to their dimension. Viv refused to take the High Evolutionary back to their dimension and managed to use her connection to the second Viv to transport herself back home alone, stranding the Evolutionary in the unknown dimension. Hunted Kraven the Hunter went to Wundagore Mountain and hunted the New Men down in order to draw the High Evolutionary out. He made a deal with the High Evolutionary to create 87 clones of him. | Powers = The High Evolutionary was exposed to his Evolutionary Accelerator machine, giving him superhuman abilities by accelerating his personal evolution. The Evolutionary has shifted between various levels of evolution over the years, sometimes deliberately sometimes not, with different power levels as well. Often he maintains some level of superhuman power while incorporating the Evolutionary Accelerator machine into his armor, letting him evolve himself further at will. The unstable Isotope E caused the High Evolutionary to uncontrollably fluctuate between God-like powers and Neanderthal-level ability and intelligence. Among the abilities the High Evolutionary has demonstrated thanks to the Evolutionizer are: * Superhuman Strength * Superhuman Intelligence: The High Evolutionary has evolved his own brain to its full potential; he has virtually unlimited knowledge and intellectual ability. * Superhuman Durability * Healing Factor: Augmented by his armor's automatic Evolutionizer equipment, the High Evolutionary is virtually unkillable. Even after being ripped to pieces and pulverized into organic jelly by the Hulk, the High Evolutionary evolved out of his injuries and was fully restored. * Telepathic Communication * Astral Projection: The High Evolutionary can separate his spirit from his physical form and can survive in this state for an indefinite period of time. * Self-Levitation * Mental Invisibility: Preventing detection by other powerful telepaths. Which he can extend to an entire world. * Force Fields * Mass Manipulation: increase and decrease his own size/mass, can grow at max to 300 feet. * Psychokinesis * Concussive Force Blasts * Plasmatic Rays * Total Recall Memory * Artificial Evolution: Capable of forcibly evolving or devolving life-forms at an accelerated rate. * Immortality: Allegedly, at one point Wyndham managed to alter his own genetic code to finally achieve eternal life. | Abilities = Super-Genius Intelligence: Skilled in science, especially relating to genetics and engineering. Brilliant theoretician. Master Geneticist | Strength = Variable; potentially class 100+. | Weaknesses = | Equipment = Evolutionary Exoskeleton: Most of the High Evolutionary's powers are derived from his protective suit which also provides its wearer with amazing protection against all physical attacks and protection from energy, psionic, or magical attacks. * Automatic Defense: The suit is designed to protect its wearer at all costs and, as such, works automatically to prevent disasters from affecting the High Evolutionary. * Reconstitution Protocol: Body armor, including micro-circuitry containing his complete genetic information and thus capable of restoring him to life in the event of his death. Thus the suit can, in time, regenerate his body or even create a whole new body for Wyndham. *'Life-Support System:' The suit provides complete life support for Wyndham, automatic recycling his air and providing him with water and food. Genetic Manipulation Technology: He frequently uses machinery to control evolutionary effects. | Transportation = | Weapons = | Notes = | Trivia = * He owns a space-worthy Citadel of Science on Transia's Mount Wundagore, a research fortress in the Savage Land, an upstate New York castle, research facilities beneath several major cities, and space facilities ranging from asteroid bases to orbital ships to the worldship New Wundagore. * He dislikes cloning, as he regards it as stagnating evolution, whereas he seeks to speed it up. ** However, his aversion to cloning didn't stop him from cloning Thor and creating Nobilius. | Marvel = | Wikipedia = | Links = }} Category:Telepaths Category:Telekinesis Category:Telepathic Immunity Category:Flight Category:Force Field Category:Technopaths Category:Cosmic Awareness Category:Zoopathy Category:Astral Projection Category:Size Alteration Category:Armor Users Category:Geneticists Category:Wyndham Family Category:High Evolutionary Experiment Category:Cloners Category:Chemists Category:Engineers Category:Immortals Category:Formerly Deceased Category:Clairvoyance Category:English Category:Oxford University Student Category:Biological Manipulation Category:Artificial Intelligences Category:Regeneration Category:Adam Warlock's Family Category:Gods of the Modern Age